obama suggested it in negotiations in the debt ceiling in 2011 but now he doesn't want any domestic cuts. he's not somebody who wants cuts anywhere, anytime and this will be forced on him and on the pentagon cuts which he thought the republicans would avoid. he's the commander in chief. he has to worry about the forces, his own secretary of defense said we'll hollow out the forces and it will cost a lot of jobs of contractors, a lot of whom live in a state he wants, virginia. so he has to do something about this and it's unbelievable he would have offered the republicans a deal in which there are extra tax increases. republicans will do nothing and they should do nothing and demand if the president wants to avoid this, you do the cuts but do them somewhere else but no tax increases. >> charles lam, twice republicans have caved in to the demands of the white house and other democrats. do you think they'll do that again or will they do nothing? >> i prefer not to think of it as caving in. perhaps there's time for everyone to get reasonable. i agree with charles that the president's probabl